


The Two Princes

by hinatot



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Comedy, M/M, Rapunzel AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6651643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatot/pseuds/hinatot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, in a land far far away, a boy got locked in a tower by an evil sorceress because she got bored. </p><p>A... slightly different Rapunzel retelling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time

"Fair Princess, let down your hair!"

The voice wafted up gently on the breeze, carrying the strength of a gale, before reaching the ears hidden in the huge nest of midnight black hair strewn everywhere in the round tower room.

The ears were not impressed.

A mound of hair piled higher than the rest shifted. Red eyes flashed in annoyance at repeating the weekly- or was it monthly? Time blurred together in the tower- ritual.

"Try again, jackass," the young man snapped down at the waiting prince- or knight, squire, whatever, he no longer cared- below him, leaning out to show his blazing eyes and thinly-pressed lips.

Knights in shining armor were nothing new to Izuru Kamukura. The same call for his hair, day in and day out, wasn’t new. And when he looked down, glaring with all his might, the mix of terror and attraction in the knight’s face wasn’t new either.

“F-Fair PRINCE,” The man corrected himself, staring in awe at the flowing black hair and glowing red eyes. “If y-“

“No,” Izuru snapped. His glare only intensified as the knight’s face hardened in resolve. Nothing new there either.

Izuru tried turning around. He tried ignoring the man at the base of the tower, he really did. But his tower was boring. Maybe this time, THIS time, a knight would provide some amusement for the long haired prince.

Ha, fat chance.

Two hours of brushing hair, rearranging all the books on the shelves, and carving half a wooden statue later, Izuru gave in.

Out flew the long, shimmering hair, like a waterfall of midnight, down the long drop to the ground. The knight hurriedly jumped aside to avoid being crushed by the massive weight, before staring up longingly at the disgusted face above him.

He shouted some words of thanks and promises of grandeur, but they fell on deaf ears as Izuru waited for the next step in the dull cycle that was his life.

A shout of surprise, a short scream, and a clank of metal. Yep, the same as always. Izuru didn’t even bother to look out the window to see the one spot of hair the man had slipped on, or where his oddly-angled corpse now lay on the ground. All he did do was pull his hair back into the crowded tower.

Around the tower known as Hope’s Peak lay dozens of bodies of men who tried to rescue the lost “Princess” Izuru. Knights, kings, heroes, and peasants- all men- came from all over the continent to try and rescue him. Coming upon the single tall tower without an entrance surrounded by jagged rocks and cliffs littered with the bodies of those who came before, many men prepared to face the worst of creatures imaginable in order to reach dear Izuru. Stories of dragons, witches, and demons spiraled out of control from the nearby villages, spreading to the rest of the world.

But it didn’t stop them. Izuru wished it would, because there was no dragon, no witch or demon or even lock. It was just Izuru, and he was fine with that. Well, mostly.

As a child, Izuru had found himself kidnapped by a powerful sorceress named Junko. Izuru, a peasant child with no particular hobbies, friends, or talents surprised the sorceress when he came willingly. When she asked why, he said-

“Because maybe it won’t be boring.”

And so the child once known as Hajime Hinata died and became the, lost, legendary,sought-after, cursed Prince(ss) Izuru, while not a day passed that he cursed the sorceress who trapped him there.

 

* * *

 

Dulled red eyes stared up at the ceiling of the small room. Piles of papers and books lay around the young man, interspersed with a long trail of silky black hair. It was about that time of day again, so no reason for the lost prince to start anything just to be interrupted.

Always around noon. Always the same call. Always the same end. The only amusing thing was the strange ways bodies sometimes landed, like ragdolls. So he was a little morbid- it’s not like he had much else of interest to occupy his time.

The sound of a horse approaching. _Here we go_ , he thought bitterly. _Another exciting day, courtesy of Junko Enoshima_.

What he didn’t expect was the sudden whinny, the soft and distant thud, and the short exclamation of surprise.

_ Huh. Some prince. Fell off his horse. Well, at least this won’t be long. _

He decided to see who this idiot was, pulling himself up slowly and carefully stepping over the river of his hair winding through the room. Whatever he expected to see when he looked out his window, it wasn’t this.

A horse ran off, riderless, into the distance, and left in a heap on the ground was… what appeared to be a dirty marshmallow, or maybe a cloud, clad in armor. The pale puff struggled around on the ground for a moment, trying to get up. If he could, Izuru was sure he would have laughed at the sight.

Finally, the ridiculous excuse for a knight or prince or whatever he was managed to get to his feet, brushing off his armor and shaking his hair. Finally he looked up. _So not a cloud after all. Oh well. People can still be amusing, I suppose._

Izuru stared down boredly, waiting for the usual call. The strange man on the ground looked around, a bit disoriented, before finally dragging his gaze up the tower and to the figure at the very top.

“Um, hello?” A slightly timid voice reached Izuru’s ears. He didn’t answer. This was different. Different was good, when you lived the same day over and over with little variation. He’d see this through.

After a moment of awkward silence and staring, the man on the ground spoke again. “...where am I?”

Izuru snorted, surprising himself but not, apparently the man on the ground, who smiled ruefully. _He’s lost. How do you get lost here? It’s so famous, how could he not know where he is? And since when did I snort?_

While Izuru continued his inner questioning, the other man took a chance to look around at the corpses strewn around the tower. He smiled a bit sadly, but didn’t linger on them, more interested in the living human above him than the dead beneath.

“Are you stuck up there?”

“...”

“You’re not much for talking, huh.”

“...”

“...want to come down?”

Izuru’s eyeroll was so exaggerated it was visible even from the base of the tower.

“I think you do. Here, I’ll get you.”

Izuru sighed and finally spoke up. “Ready to join your friends around here, then?”

The man looked around. “No, not yet, I don’t think.”

Izuru waited for the call, the same one every potential rescuer gave. He waited. Then waited a bit more. The man on the ground ignored him, instead dropping to all fours and rooting around.

“...what are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

“Going to get you down.”

“...you really are clueless.” This man was a true idiot, Izuru thought. He would have to be to have not connected the dots to figure out who Izuru was. 

“Do you need-”

“Found it!”

The man held up a grappling hook triumphantly. “Must have fallen off Santa when he ran off. Lucky for me. Or unlucky, since my horse is gone?” Izuru didn’t even pretend to understand.

Several missed throws, near collisions of head and hook, and false starts later, Izuru had a visitor other than the great sorceress for the first time.

The man didn’t look too surprised or perturbed at the massive amounts of black hair strewn about everywhere. Instead, he fixed his gaze at Izuru and offered a hand along with a bright smile. 

“Prince Nagito Komaeda. Who are you?”

_ He really is an idiot. _

And for the first time since his imprisonment, Izuru almost smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something completely different.
> 
> Quite different from my other Komahina work, but hope you like it! ^^ I actually started writing this about the same time I started TLIHE, but dropped it until recently. Hope you all like it!


	2. In a Land Far, Far Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been what... seven months? I'm so bad at this updating thing orz Trying to do it more though!! Doing NaNo this month to try and make myself write more and it's been helping a bit. Anyway, hope you enjoy! ;;v;;/

Nagito Komaeda wouldn’t exactly be what you’d consider your typical prince.

Yes, his father was a king and his mother was a queen. Yes, he lived in a castle. Yes, he attended royal ceremonies and presentations.

No, he did not have any sensibility for one of royal standing.

If his untamed, flyaway, stark white hair didn’t give some clue as to his nature, or his omnipresent almost vacant and self-deprecating smile, then the moment he opened his mouth it would become clear as day.

As a general rule, princes don’t refer to themselves as trash. Unfortunately, Prince Komaeda seemed to have missed the memo.

Seemingly steady only in his belief in his own self worth- or lack thereof- and odd obsession with luck, the young prince was nonetheless accepted by the public. There were worse royal families out there, and King Makoto and Queen Kyoko were much beloved by their people, and their choice to adopt the young boy after the tragic loss of his parents was admired openly by their subjects.

Nagito himself allowed life to sweep him where it would. When his parents died and the King and Queen took him in, he didn’t fight or go with the action. When announced as the heir to the kingdom, he simply smiled one of his vacant smiles at the news. No matter what happened, he seemed to have already accepted there was nothing he could do and simply allowed the world around him to run its course.

This very apathy was what drove the King and Queen to send him off to visit the neighboring kingdom and spend time with the royal children there. Maybe with some friends, they reasoned, he would take a bit more interest in his own life.

They didn’t understand what he meant when he smiled vaguely and said something about hoping his luck wouldn’t cycle back on him.

Or when he said “I hope you live good lives when I’m gone.”

Or when he commented about wanting to bring a trash bin instead of a tent along.

But this was all normal for the kingdom’s eccentric prince, and the King and Queen sent him off with a smile and hope in their hearts for him. With the guards accompanying him, he would be safe and wouldn’t be alone, after all.

A week later, Prince Nagito woke up and looked around to find he was, in fact, completely alone.

“Well,” he mused aloud. “This is a development.”

Looking around, it seemed as if maybe everyone simply disappeared. Tents and horses were left unattended, the fire pit simmered with warmth from the previous night, and not a whisper of human breath could be heard, aside from Nagito’s own.

This was fine. Really. Just a spot of bad luck. Or something.

He let himself wander about for a bit, content with being alone and maybe searching just a little for the guards. It wasn’t like he disliked being on his own, no, not at all.

He let his smile grow until it was painful, splitting his face in two- not like his regular calm and vacant smile. This was ok. He was fine.

Probably.

Ok maybe he wasn’t and he _was_ afraid that after his years of living fairly contentedly in a castle with a kind pair of monarchs his cyclic luck had decided he’d had enough of a good time and had determined this was the perfect time to rear its ugly head and take away everything he loved again.  
But that was ok! Completely ok.

“Yes, everything’s fine…” The prince mumbled to himself, shakily mounting his horse- who thankfully was at the camp and not mysteriously disappeared.

“I’ll just… continue on…” He spurred his horse a little and got no result.

“I knew this would happen…” A bit more force to try and get the beast to move resulted in nothing more than an annoyed tail flick.

“I’m sure they’re fine and just decided I’m not worth it…”

He tried smacking the horse’s rear, which finally got the animal to move forward. Just. Maybe a bit too quickly.

Nagito felt the horse jerk from under him and hastily latched onto the reigns, trying to control the movement, to no avail.

It could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours from when Santa began his mad dash and when Nagito’s hands finally gave out, falling to the ground with a surprised shout.

He sat and stared as his horse ran off.

_Well, at least I still have some supplies with me..._  he thought to himself, picking himself up off the ground and trying to get some of the dust and dirt he’d been thrown into off his body and out of his hair.

Finally looking around, the young prince noticed a huge tower surrounded by… were those corpses?

....this was fine.

He let his eyes travel up the structure, eventually having to crane his head back to see the top, where he could barely make out a figure looking out of a window.

“Um, hello?” He called up, a little timid- yes he was ok, perfectly fine in fact, completely, 100% ok- but he was still a bit. Shaken up. Yes, shaken up.

Silence.

...maybe whoever was up there hadn’t heard him.

He tried again, speaking a bit louder. “Where am I?”

This time, a small sound drifted down from the tower. Was that… a laugh maybe? Well, at least there really was someone up there, and his mind wasn’t just making up this scenario. Well, probably.

And it was then, not because he was lonely or afraid of being left, solitary, out in this land he didn’t know, no, not at all, that Nagito decided to do the first truly “princely” thing in his life, and rescue whoever was up there.

Yes, definately not for those reasons at all.

 

* * *

 

  
After a lot of careful and strategic maneuvering of hair- because wow that was probably more hair than all the hair he’d ever seen in his life combined- Nagito managed to get the surly boy down and on solid ground.

...except he didn’t have a plan. Or a horse. Or anything other than what he had on him, as he hadn’t thought he’d be leaving the campsite for good when he had mounted his horse earlier that day.

And he was pretty sure it showed, if the perpetually unimpressed look on the other’s face was anything to go by. _So unimpressed he wouldn’t even tell me his name. What a great first impression I made._

Still, everything was fine. Absolutely fine. So his escort had disappeared and he didn’t have access to supplies and his horse ran off and he had decided to help a random stranger with so much hair there was no way he could get around inconspicuously while in the middle of nowhere in a country he didn’t know. So what? He’d. Do something.

Yes. Something. The perfect plan.

The other boy was slowly pulling his ridiculous amount of hair into a pile around himself, looking around with an expression somewhere between utter apathy and slight curiosity. Mostly apathy though.

“Um…” Nagito began, drawing a pair of piercing red eyed towards him. “I’m… going to the Kingdom of Pears… do you… want to come with me?”

His answer was a stare, and he smiled, a bit self-deprecatingly, to himself. Who would want to travel with him, after all? His bad luck was pretty obvious at this point, so he wasn’t sure why he even offered. Trash like him always ended up alo-

“Ok.”

“...?” Well. Ok.

Seemed like this was happening, after all. The other boy had finally managed to draw all his hair to himself, and, half buried in a mound of it, still managed to look more confident and put together than Nagito himself.

Suddenly, he felt like maybe he wasn’t so much going to be the escort in this journey.

But that was fine too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna try my best to not,,, take another half year to post three pages,,,


	3. The Purest of Virgins

If he were a lesser person, Izuru might have doubted himself when he agreed to this.

Luckily for him, Izuru was intelligent and strong and he knew it- and he had made up his mind to take advantage of whatever kind of strange luck it was that had appeared in the form of this weirdly pale… prince? Maybe? Whoever he was, the point was that Izuru was going to use him to leave this place behind forever.

Step one: leave the tower had already been completed flawlessly. He was on solid ground for the first time in years, and in one piece despite the apparent shortfallings of his “rescuer.”

Step two: find civilization wasn’t going as smoothly.

Izuru was fairly content to be alone in the world, but if he was doing this, he’d need supplies and shelter, and intelligent as he was, it didn’t make up for the fact he hadn’t left a tower in years and had no experience surviving in the wild.

He had hoped maybe this Komaeda character would, against all odds, know some way to a town.

Unsurprisingly but still disappointingly, he did not.

He expected it but that didn’t mean his ire was at all lessened. Incompetence was incompetence, after all.

It only annoyed him more that Komaeda seemed to simply… accept everything Izuru said to him, not argue or get upset or anything. Just smile that same damn smile every time and agree that yes, he was incompetent.

It pissed Izuru off, but he was stuck with him. For now.

_And for good reason_ , he admitted reluctantly, watching out of the corner of his eye as the pale boy tried to untangle some of Izuru’s hair from a thorn bush it had gotten snagged on. Izuru was in no way prepared for the wild, and he needed the other, and he hated it.

Eventually, with Izuru offering no help and instead sitting to silently fume, Komaeda managed to untangle and pull Izuru’s long, black hair free. Instead of offering a hand to help the other up, however, Komaeda sat down on the ground next to Izuru. And stare at him.

_Seriously pisses me off._

“What?” Izuru finally snapped, after a few moments of awkward staring and awkward pretending-not-to-notice staring.

Komaeda didn’t even jump at the tone and just smiled.

Goddamnit, Izuru really hated this guy.

“I was thinking… since your hair is so long, it must be kind of hard to walk, and it keeps getting snagged, so… maybe we could braid it up? Or something?”

Izuru was about to quip a reply in the negative, but he paused.

That… was actually a good idea?

Ok, maybe he wasn’t entirely useless or helpless, Izuru supposed. He had managed to get him out of the tower without either dying, after all, and they hadn’t gotten killed by the forest yet, and it _would_ be nice to be able to walk without having to stop and untangle hair every few minutes.

Instead of replying, Izuru simply sectioned off a part of his hair and began braiding.

Komaeda smiled again and did the same, and for once, maybe it wasn’t entirely infuriating and annoying.

Maybe.

 

* * *

 

It had been tedious but worth it.

After what was probably several hours of intense work, the two boys had finally managed to braid, tuck, and stack Izuru’s hair into a shape where it didn’t drag along behind him like an inky river.

It was by no means pretty. Or even remotely fashionable, really, but it got the job done, and Izuru was pleased when he stood up and, despite feeling a bit top-heavy, was able to walk without tripping over, snagging on, or tangling with anything.

After taking a few experimental steps and turns to make sure he could still move without falling over, Komaeda stood up, stretching his fingers out and giving him another smile.

“So,” Komaeda started, and Izuru could practically feel the delicate calm that had come along with the impromptu hairstyling session begin to evaporate.

“You never told me your na-” he began, but Izuru cut him off.

“Yes, I’m aware, I was there as well.”

“...could you… tell me?”

The smile dropped a little and for a moment Izuru felt like he was almost seeing another person. A little tentative and hopeful.

For some reason, after that he didn’t have the heart to be cold to him. Or, as cold.

Unhappy as his life had been, hope was something that he couldn’t bring himself to purposefully crush.

“...”

“...”

The weird boy stared at Izuru for a while, not backing down but not pushing, and eventually Izuru finally caved.

“.....I’m called Kamukura Izuru.”

“Izuru, huh… kind of a weird name. It’s ok though, mine is too,” Komaeda mused, and wow that was one of the worst things to say in the situation. What was next was maybe worse- or maybe a lot better. This boy was really confusing Izuru.

“Maybe we were fated to meet?” And with that, Komaeda’s smiling mask went back up and the conversation was over.

_For as much as he pushes me for information and tries to crack my mask,_ Izuru thought, _he probably is hiding even more than I am._

If Komaeda noticed Izuru slipping into brooding thoughts, for once, he didn’t say anything about it to the other boy, and the two continued through the forest.

 

* * *

 

He was so deep in thought by the time it happened, if Komaeda hadn’t tackled him, Izuru wasn’t sure he would have even registered any of the inevitable pain.

Luckily for him (Unluckily? As a result Komaeda was basically wrapped around him and _that_ was unpleasant), the other’s for once well-timed and quick thinking saved him from the unicorn whose horn had gored the tree he’d happened to have been in front of.

Kamukura tried to yell at Komaeda to get off him, or to yell at the beast to leave, or to do something, but all that would come out was, “Nnghha??”

At least one part of the sound was understood, as Komaeda rolled off him, brushing leaves out of his hair as he stared at the now-stuck mythical creature.

“Is that… a unicorn??” He sounded half in awe and half just plain confused. “I didn’t think they were real. Just some fairy tale, like witches or something.”

Izuru struggled to sit up, and had the breath not been knocked out of him he might have laughed at the irony. _Just some fairy tale, like witches. Ha._

Still struggling to regain control of his body, he watched as the idiot prince approached the creature, circling around curiously.

At one point, he even ventured to poke its side, and scrambled backwards when it tried to kick him. _What were you expecting?_

“Should we… help it?” Komaeda ventured, returning to Izuru’s side.

He took another moment to compose himself before he responded. “Why? It tried to kill me.”

“Well, we don’t know that…”

“...you’re an idiot.”

And, like so many times before, all he got in reply was another stupid smile.

Izuru huffed in annoyance and pushed himself to his feet, carefully making his way towards the beast. Its horn was indeed very firmly embedded in the tree, and at this point it has stopped wiggling and flailing about. It could almost be pouting, though even if it was he didn’t care. The damn thing had tried to kill him, and after getting out he wasn’t wasting his life so quickly.

He stared the unicorn down for a moment, putting as much force into his glare as he could. It barely registered his presence, which made him come to an internal decision of action and speak.

“We should kill it.”

“What?” Komaeda said, alarmed.

“YOU SHALL DO NO SUCH THING, HEATHEN!” The mysterious voice said, theatrically.

Izuru and Komaeda whipped around simultaneously to see who- or what- was there, but before they could turn enough to catch a glimpse, they were knocked unconscious.

 

* * *

 

Izuru woke up to a small army of cute and fuzzy animals watching him.

“What the fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> orz as i'm making sure i write more it really hits me how much i need a beta.
> 
> hope you guys like it, and please let me know if there are any mistakes! also lol hope you like the (not so secret) mysterious new character introduced at the end


End file.
